Image-sensor chips -- the chips that capture the image in digital
cameras -- fall into two main camps: CCD, or charge-coupled
device, and CMOS (pronounced see-moss), which stands for
complementary metal-oxide semi-conductor.

The main argument in favor of CCD chips is that they're more
sensitive than CMOS chips, so you can get better images in dim
lighting. CCD chips also tend to deliver cleaner images than CMOS
chips, which sometimes have a problem with noise -- small defects
in the image.

On the other hand, CMOS chips are less expensive to manufacture,
and that cost savings translates into lower camera prices. In
addition, CMOS chips are less power-hungry than CCD chips, so you
can shoot for longer periods of time before replacing the
camera's batteries.

CMOS chips also perform better than CCD chips when capturing
highlights, such as the sparkle of jewelry or the glint of
sunlight reflecting across a lake. CCD chips suffer from
blooming, which means creating unwanted halos around very bright
highlights, while CMOS sensors do not.

Currently, an overwhelming number of cameras use CCD technology.
But cameras manufacturers are working to refine CMOS technology,
and when they do, you can expect to hear more about this type of
camera.

Digital cameras have become extremely common as the prices have come down. One of the drivers behind the falling prices has been the introduction of CMOS image sensors. CMOS sensors are much less expensive to manufacture than CCD sensors.

Both CCD (charge-coupled device) and CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensors start at the same point -- they have to convert light into electrons. If you have read the article How Solar Cells Work, you understand one technology that is used to perform the conversion. One simplified way to think about the sensor used in a digital camera (or camcorder) is to think of it as having a 2-D array of thousands or millions of tiny solar cells, each of which transforms the light from one small portion of the image into electrons. Both CCD and CMOS devices perform this task using a variety of technologies.

CCD chip:

The next step is to read the value (accumulated charge) of each cell in the image. In a CCD device, the charge is actually transported across the chip and read at one corner of the array. An analog-to-digital converter turns each pixel's value into a digital value. In most CMOS devices, there are several transistors at each pixel that amplify and move the charge using more traditional wires. The CMOS approach is more flexible because each pixel can be read individually.

CCDs use a special manufacturing process to create the ability to transport charge across the chip without distortion. This process leads to very high-quality sensors in terms of fidelity and light sensitivity. CMOS chips, on the other hand, use traditional manufacturing processes to create the chip -- the same processes used to make most microprocessors. Because of the manufacturing differences, there have been some noticeable differences between CCD and CMOS sensors.

* CCD sensors, as mentioned above, create high-quality, low-noise images. CMOS sensors, traditionally, are more susceptible to noise.
* Because each pixel on a CMOS sensor has several transistors located next to it, the light sensitivity of a CMOS chip tends to be lower. Many of the photons hitting the chip hit the transistors instead of the photodiode.
* CMOS traditionally consumes little power. Implementing a sensor in CMOS yields a low-power sensor.
* CCDs use a process that consumes lots of power. CCDs consume as much as 100 times more power than an equivalent CMOS sensor.
* CMOS chips can be fabricated on just about any standard silicon production line, so they tend to be extremely inexpensive compared to CCD sensors.
* CCD sensors have been mass produced for a longer period of time, so they are more mature. They tend to have higher quality and more pixels.

Based on these differences, you can see that CCDs tend to be used in cameras that focus on high-quality images with lots of pixels and excellent light sensitivity. CMOS sensors traditionally have lower quality, lower resolution and lower sensitivity. CMOS sensors are just now improving to the point where they reach near parity with CCD devices in some applications. CMOS cameras are usually less expensive and have great battery life.

********

Background info - History- More in depth tech:

The difference between CCD and CMOS

1970 is a landmark year for image processing industry; the United States Bell Labs invented the CCD. After 20 years, people use it to create the digital cameras; image-processing industries is pushed into a new field. Digital camera without film and rinse, can repeat shooting and immediate adjustment; Imaging can be copied without limit and not reduced quality, facilitate the permanent preservation and can be used for electronic transmission and processing. Its birth to the image processing industry has brought a revolution.

Later, it was discovered that a kind of processing chip in the computer system can be used as digital camera sensitive sensors or CMOS, featuring mass production and low-cost that is businessmen pursuit. Industry analysis believes that it in the near future may replace CCD, but now they still coexist. Many people believe that: "Intelligent sensors, particularly CCD, is the extremely core components, is the heart of digital cameras. "This is not true: Intelligent sensor, or CCD, its function is to capture light and converted them to electronic signals through lens, CCD is not so much the heart, as it is eyes for the cameras. In researching cameras, the CCD or CMOS sensor photosensitive though is a very important component, determine a large extent the pixel camera, However, CCD / CMOS chip do not take the dominant position of the cost, the more sophisticated areas, the more prominent this character.

From a view of technical point, CCD and CMOS have four different aspects:

1. Data readout method

The charge stored by CCD charge-coupled device, need the control of synchronous signal to read after being translated. Charge transfer and information read and output need work with clock control circuit and three different power resources. The whole circuit is much more complex. CMOS photoelectric sensors directly generated electronic signal after conversion, the signal is very simple to read.

2. Speed
CCD charge-coupled device output the information under the control of clock control circuit; the speed of output is slow. While the CMOS can capture the signal and output it at the same time, process the image data of each unit in the meanwhile. Of course, the speed is faster than CCD’s.
3. Power source and electricity consumption
CCD needs three power sources to support its work; the consumption of electricity is serious. CMOS only need one power source and the consumption is small, maybe equivalent to 1/8 to 1/10 of CCD. Therefore, CMOS has a real advantage in saving energy.

4. Image quality
Because CCD is begin made in early days, its technology is maturity, and adopt PN or SiO2 to reduce the noise, so the image quality is better than CMOS. But in recent years, with the development of the noise eliminating technology, CMOS will get much better image quality.

Besides, the internal and external structures of them are different.
1. The internal structure (itself structure)
The each image point of CCD consists of one Photodiodes and one charge storage zoon next to charge storage and under its control. Photodiodes convert the photons into electron and the relationship between the numbers of electron and intensity of light is direct ratio, when read these charge, the data moved into the ISA Server. The image generated from this structure has the merits of low noise and high function, but need clock signal and Technology for Deflective Pressure to produce CCD, so that the whole system is complex , increase the consumption of electricity and cost.

CMOS’s electronic components can be integrated at the one process period, such as Digital Logic Circuit, Clock Driver and the ADC. It likes storage and each image point includes one Photodiodes, one charge or voltages convert unit, one reset and others. It can read the signal by simple X-Y addressing technology,

2.external structure (the application of the products)
CCD charge-coupled device output the information under the control of clock control circuit; the speed of output is slow. While the CMOS can capture the signal and output it at the same time, process the image data of each unit in the meanwhile. Of course, the speed is faster than CCD’s.

CMOS can combine all of components of digital camera into one chip, including photosensitive element, picture amplifier, signal readout circuit, image signal processor and controller and among others. Only one chip can carry out many functions, so the whole cost of it is low.

I'll definitely have to try out the camera before drilling any holes then.

What do I do for power for this thing? It's got a wierd connector for 12vdc. I'd have imagined that I would need to ground the camera as well as apply 12v. There were zero instructions with the camera.

Since the specs of the camera I got aren't listed, I don't know what the viewing angle of the camera is. Does anyone have any information on a camera that has a MUCH wider angle and is maybe a little smaller? I don't want to spend a fortune though.

I'll definitely have to try out the camera before drilling any holes then.

What do I do for power for this thing? It's got a wierd connector for 12vdc. I'd have imagined that I would need to ground the camera as well as apply 12v. There were zero instructions with the camera.

Since the specs of the camera I got aren't listed, I don't know what the viewing angle of the camera is. Does anyone have any information on a camera that has a MUCH wider angle and is maybe a little smaller? I don't want to spend a fortune though.

If it is the same as the one I bought (looks similar to the picture, but can't really tell), the yellow connector on the camera needs a barrel connector. If you look closely at it, it should have a dot with a circle around it, with indications which is positive and which is negative. Radio Shack should have the right size barrel connector.

The red one is a barrel connector (barrel with central post), but Radio Shack didn't have anything that looked like it would fit. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place

I hate radio shack now. They ALWAYS say they have stuff in stock, but then never have anything. Every one I've been to has the relay drawer that says "4PDT" but I've NEVER seen a 4PDT relay and socket. EVER.

:<--62.00mm-----------: body to flange - (Flange is the part that contacts body of car)

<---67.40 overall --------: with small projection that wire comes out of. In addtion if needing the wire to make a "bend", count on 10mm more... making overall dim 77.40mm

Mfg listing on the box other models they mfg

YA-218
YA-219
YA-408
YA-468
YA-469
YA-506
YA-518
YA-568

Options:
CCD
CMOS
MIC
PAL
NTSC
B/W
COLOR

2.1mm
2,8mm
3.6mm
4mm
6mm
8mm
12mm

Impressions of YA-468?
.

Build quality- machine work -GOOD
Image -Color? GOOD image in sunlight
Image quality in IR MODE? B/W... Inside house unless room is well lit the IR LEDs come ON. Noticeable HOT spot, round in size appox 30% of viewing area. Items within 5-6 feet being progressively "washed-out" the nearer the cam is to the object. Anything closer than 4 -5-6 feet being so well lit by the IR LEDS washed out badly... Outside the 30% center hot spot image good.- if you have some type of ambient light. As available light drops there is noticeable noise, moulting (hazy look) to image

Using in-house this was noticeable- using it as intended as a vehicle back-up cam with vehicles backup lights "filling in" the dead spots, the center hot spot should work well.

Note that when cam is in IR MODE there is a noticeable moulted look to the image- (I unscrewed the lense body- cleaned, no improvement)

Other impressions:

When the IR LEDS are running- if you look closely they are RED- and B: the LEDS heat up the unit..

Additionally .. you will not be able to mount this unit inside the car, looking thru glass as the red IR leds reflect.... I read somewhere BLUE IR LEDS do not have this problem?

Will try to post info later on.. One thing that concerns me is the body is 31mm....(1.220 inch)

I don't have a door panel off right now, or a door lock out to measure but I'm thinking the standard keyhole is right at 27mm /1 inch, and this one is 31mm /1.220 inches...

Oh, on the warm up time.. when connecting the power from a cold start (unit not powered up 8 hours) image appears in about (>1) second, full image in about 2 seconds indoors. Outdoors I haven't tested yet -but I have noticed when using indoors if the IR LEDS have gone into "wash-out-mode" (Getting cam too close) that it takes several seconds for the AGC to kick in for the image to stabilize.

Overall happy with the cam- that said the image in low lighting conditions had that moulted look...

Will try to post some pics, but right now I'm having a problem with a external hard drive.

OS: XP PRO, SP2 that I remember having to do the Press F6 to install the SATA drivers (and or use a disc with SATA drivers slipstreamed in) Primary drive installed internally is SATA- is working fine.

PROBLEM?

Several days ago my pets decided to have "races" in my computer room. By the time I got back there there was stuff everywhere...

Luckily the unit didn't hit the ground and was upright on my desk but I noticed the power cord had dislodged from the unit while powered ON... Stupid me plugging it back in while it was connected via the ESATA connector.- it feeding into a Western Digital SATA controller card (Promise) that came with the internal 400gb primary drive installed internally.

Ever since then the DTS works fine via USB, and ESATA when using another computer, but on the box it was running on I cannot "see" the drive in file explorer, disk management, nor in device manager.

When booting- after the bios screen for the motherboard comes up, and the screens for the Promise /WD controller comes up I can "see" the drive if I go into the confiquartion screen for the controller card. I think the primary is assigned stripe 1+0, the Seagate shows as "Free".... once the OS boots I see no references to the drive... There are (2) IDE drives in the system- NOT running a RAID setup.

Have tried scanning for new hardware changes in device manager (as some have suggested) with no effect. Have tried swapping the unit to naother SATA port- still not working... but unit willl work via eSATA on another machine indicating the hardware on the external unit is fine... the problem areas maybe being the add-on controller card- or a SATA driver issue.

BTW:

Have several of the APRICORN units- a DT (USB only) and DTC (USB and FIREWIRE), and DTS, (USB and eSATA)... GREAT UNITS- has a huge 70mm internal fan, PLUS the hd is in direct contact with the external housing, made out of thick aluminum.

(Most units on the market do not have a fan, either that or use a small, noisy fan... and in addtion most units isolate the hd from the external housing.... The Apricron units keep the hd nice and COOL... and if the fan dies there is a thermal path to the casing, instead of the drive being isolated, enclosed with no air getting to it.)

In case anyone else has their external eSATA drive sudden stop functioning - after the power cable has come out..

The fix is this:

Notice when your PC is booting, watching to see if all drives are showing up. In my case I have a combo of IDE/PATA drives and SATA ones.... and I'm using a add-in card for SATA. In my case the SATA configuration screen comes up AFTER the bios screen-

Anyhow as I pointed out above (but no-one caught it) after the power plug got knocked out when the SATA screen would come up the external drive was showing as "FREE" instead of being assigned.

If the above happens to you -go into your SATA/RAID configuration screen to check that it is assigned.